Protect or Plunder: The Importance of E-learning in Data Privacy

Security risk has become a common threat to businesses in this digital age. After all, a hacker who wants to gain access to your official records just needs a laptop with broadband connection, a lazy network administrator and a careless worker who doesn’t adhere to the data privacy policies. This may be unintentional from an employees’ point of view but may lead to the company facing serious threats.

Here is the US OTA Breach report and some important aspects related to the data breaches that have occurred in the United States in 2014.

Hackers exposed 740 million private records of the companies, employees, and their clients.

Insider threats and mistakes accounted to 31% of the total data breach incidents.

The result of physical loss by employees like PC, drive, notebooks, paper documents, and so on accounted to 21% of the total data breach incidents.

The result of weak employee/company account credentials accounted to 76% of the total data breaches.

89% of all these data breaches and data loss incidents could have been prevented by creating proper awareness among the employees.

This report alarmingly highlights not only data breach incidents but also the negligence of employees toward data privacy policies.

But what is data privacy?

Information Privacy or Data Privacy

Data privacy or information privacy is the handling of employees’ and clients’ personal data in a suitable manner. Every company has to take utmost care to handle this sensitive information in a proper manner. Many cases were reported in the United States, in which companies sold, disclosed, and rented the clients’ sensitive information to third parties!

In this regard, the Federal Trade Commission, USA in accordance with FTA Act and other 33 laws imposes fines on the companies that violate privacy policies.

The task of safeguarding personal and business data forms the cornerstone of any company’s business. So, it should be ensured that all employees follow privacy policies in a proper manner. The companies must ensure this happens through an effective training approach.

However, according to a survey conducted by Provity, a global consultancy firm, when the training approach has only included simple box-ticking methods or other very basic selection of choices, the employees may not understand the seriousness of data privacy.

Therefore, a customized training with more focus on the risks associated with negligence and the role of every employee in keeping the data secure should be rendered. Also, organizations should ensure that refresher training is imparted frequently.

One cost-effective approach to this type of training is through e-learning. With many rapid authoring tools like Lectora, Captivate, and Storyline, courses can be made more interactive. Scenarios can be added and explanation can be given on what they should do if they face a similar situation.

More importantly, courses should be related to the job roles of employees. After developing the course, it can be delivered in multiple locations at multiple times. If the organization is operating globally, with a little investment, the course can be translated into required local languages.

Thus, an effective training on the privacy policies and making your employees understand their role in safeguarding data will ensure that you and your company are in safe hands from the risks of data breaches.